Bennett on CNN: 'If Bin Laden was in hospital you’d go and kill him'

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was interviewed by CNN and discussed the raid by undercover Yamam special forces to eliminate three terrorists inside a hospital in Jenin.

The interviewer asked Bennett if he was comfortable with such tactics of killing terrorists inside a hospital, to which he responded: "The real question is, am I comfortable with terrorists using hospitals as their haven, because we're fighting terrorists who have no red lines, do not abide by any law, and we're held to double standards. Hamas does whatever it wants and uses children and families as human shields, and then when we have to go target those very terrorists who are using the hospital for refuge, then we're accused."

Regarding the claim that at least one of the terrorists was indeed being treated at the hospital, the former Prime Minister said that to the best of his knowledge, the terrorists were using the hospital as a refuge, not because they were being treated. "We have to look at every incident, but by in large, what we've seen in Gaza and the 'West Bank', in very big numbers is Hamas using hospitals, schools, and kindergartens as a refuge, that's the real problem," he added.

Bennett noted that "the operation was pretty impressive; sending soldiers who have to disguise themselves as terrorists and abducting terrorists, that's what were going to do, we have to defend ourselves."

When the interviewer again pushed on the question regarding one of the terrorists being a patient at the hospital, Bennett responded: "If Osama Bin Laden was in the hospital and his thumb was injured, do you go in and kill him? The answer is yes."

Bennett spoke about President Biden's executive order to level sanctions against Israelis who were accused of "settler violence," calling it unnecessary. "In Israel, we prosecute any violence, any criminal activity, we don't need any external help to do it. And I have to say, what's called 'violence of settlers' is marginal. We're talking about a 50% decrease this year in that violence, and to begin with, it's not big numbers, we're taking care of it. I think it's inflated to create some false symmetry between the Palestinian violence and the settler violence. We are on top of it, we don't need any foreign assistance to prosecute that sort of thing," he stated.